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We go back the thread of French comedy: laughter guaranteed with this collector's box set not to be missed!
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???? Saturday December 14 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2 and on france.tv
This documentary series in 4 episodes aims to tell the story of the persistence, since the 1950s, but especially since the explosion that constituted Le Corniaud in the mid-1960s, of a true French school of popular comedy.
Paying homage to him today amounts to telling a short and funny history of France (and the French) through the small end of the lens. But it is also about saluting the audacity and the challenge which consists of making people laugh, especially on subjects which are not necessarily funny.
Comedy is an art, and undoubtedly the most difficult of the traditional genres of entertainment, but it is also a wonderful revealer and summary of the spirit of the times, a real seismographic survey which says a lot about a country, a society and those who constitute it. Tell me what makes you laugh and I'll tell you who you are…
Episode 1: The two make a pair
The comic duo in the cinema is first of all two personalities that are completely opposed and who end up becoming inseparable. But above all it is the recipe for the greatest successes of French comedy.
The unbeatable Bourvil-de Funès have magnificently opened the way for other tandems, just as explosive. Invented for the stage, the comic duo has never ceased to renew itself, passing from the expert hands of troupes from the café-theatre (Michel Blanc and Gérard Lanvin) to the TV troublemakers (Éric and Ramzy), to the pros of the stand-up (Florence Foresti and Jamel Debbouze).
With their unforgettable lines, their legendary scenes and their classic laughs, the comic duos have shaped an irresistible mechanism of laughter, which has become a sure value of French cinema.
Episode 2: Friends first
French cinema loves multi-faceted humor. And teems with these troupes of comic actors who met when they were very young before exploding on the big screen: from Splendid to Nuls, from Charlots to Inconnus, including the Branquignols, who showed the way in the 1950s, the Robins des bois or very recently La Bande à Fifi.
Together and over time, they learned that all roads lead to comedy: theater, song, café-theatre or television.
This documentary aims to meet these funny people in organized groups and to verify the veracity of the adage according to which the more, the merrier!
Episode 3: Laugh with the times
From the Playtime business district to the Ardèche ZAD of Problemos, French comedy has, for 70 years, enjoyed capturing the tensions and aspirations of a France in perpetual transformation. Because by making the clash of cultures a recurring comic spring (Rabbi Jacob, Camping, The sky, the birds and your mother, What have we done to the good Lord?…) comedy allows, better than any other genre, to deal with the contrasts and contradictions of society. Better still, she sometimes delivers, between two bursts of laughter, a real reflection on living together (The taste of others by Agnès Jaoui, The meaning of the celebration of Nakache and Toledano), class relations (Life is a long quiet river by Etienne Chatiliez) the patriarchal system (3 men and a bassinet by Coline Serreau) or communitarianism (Simply black by Jean-Pascal Zadi). Often offering a true x-ray of France, in all its diversity. With a unique program: laughing to better bring us together.
Episode 4: Beast and villain
In the world of popular comedy, “stupid and nasty” humor is a very French label. This committed and transgressive cinema uses black and sulphurous humor to hit on everything that moves: sex, the media, religion… Michel Audiard, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Bertrand Blier, Jean Yanne or Albert Dupontel provoke and shock to denounce the taboos and failings of society, in films that have often become cult. Of Crossing Paris has Berniepassing through The waltzers, The big evening or OSS 117these scathing comedies mock war profiteers, dog punks, uneducated spies, priapic thugs or barbarian orphans, and take a scathing look at their times. With language and derision as its weapon, this subversive and irreverent cinema offers the possibility of laughing – bitterly or to tears – at the world that surrounds us, confuses us or worries us.
Happy end of year holidays!
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